self-realization

English

Alternative forms

• self-realisation

Etymology

From self- +‎ realization.

Noun

self-realization (countable and uncountable, plural self-realizations)

1. The fulfillment of one's own abilities or capacities; self-actualization.
   • 1994 October, Harry Hay, “Focussing On NAMBLA Obscures The Issues”, in Gay Community News, page 16:

     We must, as a movement, address the needs of our Gay/Lesbian youth whose experience of puberty, instead of providing a joyous self-realization and affirmational discovery, plunges them into a snake pit of self-loathing.

2. The direct experience of being, in relation to one's inner nature as an unbounded creator of one's reality.
3. A realization about oneself.
   • 1934, comment by Abdullah Yusuf Ali on Sura 38 verse 24 of the Qur'an

     Judged by the highest standard of those nearest to God, the thought of self-pride and self-righteousness had to be washed off from him [King David] by his own act of self-realisation and repentance.